15 Years of Perpetual Travel by Andy Lee Graham - About Andy The HoboTraveler.com

About Andy The Hobotraveler Com

15 Years of Perpetual Travel by Andy Lee Graham

I, Andy Lee Graham as of March 1, 2013 declare that I have now perpetually traveled the planet for 15 years, and have visited 90 countries.

“All lies and jests,Still a man hears what he wants to hearAnd disregards the rest. “- Lyric from song “The Boxer.”

Traveler Defined:A traveler never lives in the same home, room, hotel, or apartment longer than three months.

Are you a traveler?Many declare,“I am a traveler.”Yes, many people are indeed a traveler for one month, one year, and even a few for three years. Many people living abroad wish to declare themselves a world traveler.

The “Are you a traveler test?”

With only two questions, you can learn whether a person understands the life of a traveler. Please, I beg you, I plead with you, do not celebrate, or romanticize the traveler lifestyle, it is not the dream, I am not living the dream, and you should not aspire to become a perpetual traveler of the planet.

It is my lifestyle, one never plans to become a perpetual traveler, only after 10 years, and does one finally accept his or her life.

Ask these two questions to decide if a person is a traveler?

1. Do you own a home?

2. Do you rent by the year?

3. Do you pay for storage, where do you keep your mementos, the family photos, the things you wish to never lose?

The Answer: It is logistically almost impossible to own, rent, or NOT pay for long-term storage.

I have a family bible, photos; many people have identifications, or certifications saying they graduated from High School, or University, and other documents that are irreplaceable. Maybe your grandmother gave you a family heirloom, a ring that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Listen to the answer of the traveler, and then please stop asking…I store my mementos and family heirlooms in my parent’s house, in Orland, Indiana of the USA. After about 7-10 years of travel, when I stopped to visit my parents, I looked at pile of my things the size of a small car, and decide to throw away 80 percent of these things, knowing that I had no future use.

I trashed everything that had utility use, for example, a briefcase; I knew it would never be used again in my life. Many crazy things I considers valuable and stored at year three of my travels, slowly age and become worthless at year 10.

It takes a lot of energy, trust and energy to protect my mementos, and family heirlooms.

My parents are 80 years old and somewhere in the nest 5-15 years, I will return to the USA, rent storage the size of a closet, and pay 2-10 years into the future, with the hope of protecting these items.

After having these items sitting in your family, or friends place for over a year or two, they start to believe they have the right to move, separate, or use your person things.

Funny Story:I had 8 of the Survivor Thailand headbands; I collected them when I was on the Island of Koh Taratao, shortly after they filmed this non-Reality show on the Island. My mother has slowly given them to neighbors, friends, and other people. With love and a laugh, I said to my mother,“Those headbands sell for 100 dollars on e-bay!”

Oh well, life goes on, and memories fade, I will never return to the USA to show them to friends, and family and say,“I once was there, I once travel to Thailand.”

I now live here, not there, and to steal the words of Paul Theroux the writer, who is maybe a traveler in remission,“Elsewhere.”Travel it going elsewhere, to be somewhere else than at home.

I no longer have a home, my home is elsewhere for others, it is here for me, wherever my backpack sits today, is my home. I have what can most accurately define as a “Mobile Household.”

And yes, people living in Motor homes, and living on Sailboats can be traveler, providing they have the addiction, the wanderlust, and unplug from shore power, or move their entire concrete pad, never staying for longer than 3 months.

In many ways, I think a traveler should, could, or would add new countries to his or her profile, maybe 1-10 countries per year. Any anyone that one-country-it does not really stand up to the test of being a traveler.

Travel means exactly that, we travel, we move, and because we travel there is a limit to what is possible to carry.

I truly cannot own, keep, and maintain more than a small room of things, it is expensive.

Yes, the critical thinker will know analyze what I have written above, and say,“I know a man with three houses that travels all the time.”

There are super-rich, people that have accumulated great wealth and capable of paying extremely large sums of money to keep a home, or storage in many locations on the planet.

And again it comes down to one question:

Doe this person need to move, want to move, want to change culture, and country every three months?

Travel is an addiction, not a want, it is a need, a slow ache, after about one month my brain starts to burn, after two months in one location, I start to become grumpy, at around 60 days in one location, I start to feel mission creep, the thing, the stuff, the room is growing, I know I am inside a trap, these things will soon own me, and I will not have the energy to fight back, I will fall in love with things, and spend the rest of my life protecting and watching stuff.

I then escape, jettison the small ball and chains that have accumulated and go in search of future memories. Each future memory gives me an endorphin rush, a tingle.

To experience this, enter a new city, search for a room, then take a walk about, I am addicted to that feeling, the new day, the new city, the new faces, the wonder of it all, a life of endless curiosity.

Conclusion:

The feelings inside my inner mind can be pointed at, but almost impossible to share with you. There are a few who travel, who understand the intoxicant that is in me, that has take over my life, that now is me, I cannot return home, I am home, it is elsewhere.

There is a song, and old song by written by Paul Simon, of the singing duel called “Simon and Garfunkel.”“The Boxer.”

I see many of living lives of “The Boxer,” if your mind is always wondering, if you cannot stop day dreaming, if there is a rage in you soul, if the hole in your chest is never full, just maybe your home is living elsewhere.

I am not “The Boxer,” I am the Traveler,Andy Graham today, Sunday, 6:24 AM, March 3, 2013 elsewhere in Natitingou, Benin, West Africa

Today, I will wink at a pretty girl, and think of you, I here, and you are there. And, when I hear the words,“I would never go there.I know you are talking about my home, the great elsewhere, where you will never go.

Mom Graham says it is 16 years of travel, yet who knows? I became a traveler, one does not plan to become a traveler, it is what you finally admit to yourself, when you say,“I am leaving,”and you know you will leave.

Thank you,Andy Lee Graham 15 years of perpetual travel.

Simon and Garfunkel The Boxer Lyrics

I am just a poor boyThough my story's seldom toldI have squandered my resistanceFor a pocket full of mumbles such are promisesAll lies and jestsStill a man hears what he wants to hearAnd disregards the rest

When I left my home and my familyI was no more than a boyIn the company of strangersIn the quiet of the railway station running scaredLaying low, seeking out the poorer quartersWhere the ragged people goLooking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie ...

Asking only workman's wagesI come looking for a jobBut I get no offers,Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh AvenueI do declare, there were times when I was so lonesomeI took some comfort there

Lie la lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothesAnd wishing I was goneGoing homeWhere the New York City winters aren't bleeding meBleeding me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxerAnd a fighter by his tradeAnd he carries the remindersOf ev'ry glove that layed him downOr cut him till he cried outIn his anger and his shame"I am leaving, I am leaving"But the fighter still remains

Lie la lie ...

Life is good.

Thanks to the good Gods,

"If you miss the train I'm on you will know that I am gone You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles."

Good for you Andy. You have chosen a good life style considering the problems that so many of us share living "for the man." I only wish, looking back, I had done the same but we all do what we do for many different reasons.
At least now I do travel and I certainly do not do it as a wealthy person does.

"After having these items sitting in your family, or friends place for over a year or two, they start to believe they have the right to move, separate, or use your person things." This reminds me of my first very lengthy trip from home at 18. I went to Boot Camp and then a few other places after. I came home on leave and saw my room had been cleaned up thoroughly. I had a collection of three really important things in my life, various 1st editions through differnt numbers of comic books from te 40s and 50s. I also had the 1st 1 1/2 of Playboy. I had many baseball cards from the 40s and 50s, all these were in pristine shape.

All gone, todays I would quite possibly be a millionaire, but mom and dad either threw them out or gave away.
No sense going any further, gone is gone.

But in the long run I learned a valuable lesson, I taught my kids to save and protect that which they consider valuable but also get rid of stuff laying around forever but check and double check to see if it has any reasonable value first.